Ahhhh, Iowa!

September 30, 2010

Iowa is such a breath of fresh air after the hot, dusty, uneven roads of Wyoming and Nebraska. The hills are rolling and covered with corn, field peas (we think), mown hay, and lots of bright, green lawns. We are camped near Adel and spent part of the day in and around Winterset, which, I am sure you all know, was the birthplace of John Wayne. He's a pretty big deal around here....the main street through town is John Wayne Drive. The house is open for tours and a house beside it is open as a gift shop.  The link I put in is for the museum and probably has more information that we do, since we didn't go inside.

Winterset is the county seat and WOW! what a courthouse! It is made of local limestone with local oak and walnut interior finishing...beautiful wainscoting, stairs and the doors! The doors to enter are huge, made of heavy (and I mean heavy) solid wood.  We walked through and it looks as if it could be a state capitol, rather than a county courthouse.

Here's a bit of detail of the top of the courthouse. The building is built in the "Roman style" with a door on all four sides, so the top has a clock on all four sides. The clock chimes every hour and church bells ring on the hour and half hour. It really is a beautiful building. And a neat little town.  We wandered around a bit, but I'm sure we only saw the tip of the iceberg.  It's definitely an area to re-visit sometime.

We had a huge, late-ish breakfast and had packed a picnic lunch so we weren't hungry, but we did find a few eating places that sounded interesting, including one with the best business name we've seen in a long time.  It's a pizza place, advertising "original French crust" and is named Breadeaux Pizza.  Isn't that just a wonderful name?

There was also an interesting dessert shop....the window had a beautiful 3-tier Major Occassion Cake with fresh fall flowers that looked great, but what caught our eyes was a sign in the window advertising their Monday night "All You Can Eat Cupcake Buffet".  In-store eating only, $5 adults, $2.50 children, 5-8pm.

There also were a few places advertising "loose meat sandwiches" which we can't say much about...we weren't sure if they were morally loose, ie., loose women or loose in the traitorous fashion, as in "Loose Lips Sink Ships" so we felt it better to just not get involved at all.